The display of artificial human-like entities may be found in prevalent existence in today's society. For example, mannequins that model clothes in department stores, animatronic characters that delight theme park visitors, human patient simulators used to train medical students and emergency responders, and telepresence systems that allow people to have a physical presence at meetings halfway across the world are commonly utilized. In most instances, it is only important that the person being displayed resembles a human (e.g., an androgynous mannequin).
In other instances, it is very important that the artificial representation resembles a specific and unique person (e.g., a single fictional or real person). For example, an animatronic character at a theme park might need to look like the same specific identifiable person all the time. Telepresence systems include similar characteristics but also have the additional requirements of flexibility and to accommodate multiple people (associated with different features) to use the system at different times. To this end, traditional graphical telepresence usually involves using a conventional flat display to show a live feed from a video camera pointed at a person/subject using the system. This setup generally allows the user to be recognized, but also has the unintended result of failing to correctly display some non-verbal cues (e.g., gaze direction, facial expressions, etc.) to multiple viewers located at respectively different viewing locations.
Recently, the use of dynamic shader lamps has been applied to telepresence and training by using a head-shaped display surface onto which live imagery of an input user is displayed. The Shader Lamps Avatar (SLA) system includes a pan-tilt-unit for controlling the orientation of the display surface to match the head pose of the user. The SLA has properties which reinforce many of the visual cues that can be expected in an actual face. The output geometry will have effects from the lighting in the output environment and features on the face will behave in accordance with a person's mental models of occlusion and perspective. Using such an animatronic SLA device helps to overcome some of the limitations exhibited by conventional flat display telepresence. For example, head pose and gaze direction are much more apparent to a wide range of viewpoints using an animatronic SLA device. However, the implementation of animatronic SLA systems to display small facial expression motions still have several shortcomings, such as actuator size limitations and an associated increase in equipment and operation costs.
Accordingly, in light of these disadvantages, there exists a need for methods, systems, and computer readable media for utilizing synthetic animatronics.